A foldable portable telephone comprises an openable/closable casing. Arranged on an inner surface of the casing are a speech transmission portion and a speech reception portion, as well as a manipulation surface of a key input device and a screen of a display. When to be carried, the telephone is made compact by closing the casing. When the telephone is to send or receive signals, the manipulation surface of the key input device, the screen of the display, and the speech transmission portion and speech reception portion are exposed by opening the casing to thereby allow the user to make a call.
The portable telephones which have been in wide use in recent years have a function of sending and receiving a message. In receiving a message, the user of the foldable portable telephone having such a function opens the casing to thereby expose the manipulation surface of the key input device and the screen of the display, and thereafter manipulates a message-display key to thereby present the contents of the received message on the display. In this manner the user can read the received message.
In sending a reply message to the sender of the received message, as a first step the user manipulates a reply-message-preparation key with the contents of the received message displayed on the display as described above to present a reply-message-preparation screen on the display to thereby prepare a message to be sent by entering characters. As a last step the user manipulates a message-sending key to thereby send the prepared message to a communications equipment of the sender of the received message. In this way the user can send a reply message to the sender of the received message.
However, when the user of the conventional portable telephone sends a reply message to the sender of the received message, the user needs to perform a series of manipulations such as opening the casing, manipulating the message-display key, manipulating the reply-message-preparation key, entering characters, and manipulating the message-sending key as described above, entailing the problem of cumbersomeness of the series of manipulations.
An object of the present invention is to provide a portable telephone which more simplifies a series of manipulations of sending a message to the sender of a message when the message is received or to the other party than the sender of the received message than conventionally.